The World Chess Championship – A Brief History

GM Anand, with his recent victory as World Chess Champion has opened a new chapter in Chess History.

This championship brings a significant accomplishment for the International Chess Federation “FIDE”, since, after the unification match between Kramnik and Topalov, in which Kramnik won the match, now we have an undisputed World Chess Champion.

The World Chess Championship is undoubtedlyFIDE’s most prestigious event.

Throughout history, chess players have known who were the strongest (or at least the most famous) players of their day.

The World Chess Federation ( Federation Internationale des Echecs, known as FIDE , was founded in Paris on 20 July 1924, it is recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the supreme body, responsible for the organization of chess and its championships at global and continental levels.

Although efforts were made by the players in 1922, two years before the birth of FIDE, to establish regulations for the World Champions, it was not until 1948, when FIDE began playing a role in taking over the management and administration of the World Chess Championships.

From 1886 to 1946, the World Championship was conducted on an informal basis, with a challenger having to defeat the incumbent in a match to become the new World Champion. The following is the list of World Champions during this period:

Wilhelm Steinitz1886-1894 Austria / United States

Emanuel Lasker1894-1921 Prussia / Germany

Jose R. Capablanca1921-1927 Cuba

Alexander Alekhine1927-1935 Soviet Union (Russia) / France

Max Euwe1935-1937 Netherlands

Alexander Alekhine1937-1946 France

Following the death of World ChampionAlexander Alekhine in 1946, FIDE went on to organize the World Championship Tournament among the leading players at the time. Grandmaster Mikhail Botvinnik became World Champion.

Since then, FIDE organized a series of qualifying tournaments, starting from the National Championships, Zonal Tournaments, played in the FIDE zones around the world, Interzonals for the winners of the Zonals, and Candidate Matches of the World Chess Championship. These series of qualifying tournaments and matches as instituted by FIDE, have seen the emergence of such great names in chess history as Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.

The following is the list of undisputedWorld Champions from 1886-1993:

Wilhelm Steinitz1886-1894 Austria / United States

Emanuel Lasker1894-1921 Prussia / Germany

Jose R Capablanca1921-1927 Cuba

Alexander Alekhine1927-1935 Soviet Union (Russia) / France

Max Euwe1935-1937 Netherlands

Alexander Alekhine1937-1946 France

Mikhail Botvinnik1948-1957 Soviet Union (Russia)

Vasily Smyslov1957-1958 Soviet Union (Russia)

Mikhail Botvinnik 1958-1960 Soviet Union (Russia)

Mikhail Tal1960-1961 Soviet Union (Latvia)

Mikhail Botvinnik1961-1963 Soviet Union (Russia)

Tigran Petrosian1963-1969 Soviet Union (Armenia)

Boris Spassky1969-1972 Soviet Union (Russia)

Robert J. Fischer1972-1975 United States

Anatoly Karpov1975-1985 Soviet Union (Russia)

Garry Kasparov1985-1993 Soviet Union / Russia

Out of the above list of World Champions, it’s important to mention that Robert J Fischerdid not lose his title by playing a match, instead since FIDE refused to accept his conditions, Fischer did not accept playing. Therefore, Fischer’sWorld Champion Title was removed and given to Grandmaster Anatoly Karpov.

Important Note: This was the beginning of a FIDE’s policy to remove a World Champion Title, if a champion refuses to defend his title.

A similar situation took place again in 1993, when GM Kasparov did not accept playing a match for the FIDE World Championship. So then, FIDE appointed GM Karpov and GM Timman to play.

This match, played in various cities in the Netherlands, took place in the shadows of the Kasparov-Short Classical World Championship.

FIDE continued their world championship cycle as if Kasparov’s departure had not even happened.

FIDE World Champions 1993-2006 which are not universally recognized.

Anatoly Karpov1993-1999 Russia

Alexander Khalifman1999-2000 Russia

Viswanathan Anand2000-2002 India

Ruslan Ponomariov2002-2004 Ukraine

Rustam Kasimdzhanov2004-2005 Uzbekistan

Veselin Topalov2005-2006 Bulgaria

Classical World Champions 1993-2006 (Not recognized by FIDE):

Garry Kasparov1993-2000 Russia

Vladimir Kramnik2000-2006 Russia

After the unification match between Bulgarian Champion, GM Veselin Topalov and Russian GM Vladimir Kramnik in October 2006, the International Chess Federation , FIDE decided to reintroduce a World Championship Tournamentinstead of the traditional World Championship Match.

So far, FIDE has organized threeWorld Championship Tournaments:

1) The Hague, Moscow Year 1948: This was necessary since GM Alexander Alekhine died in 1946.

2) San Luis, Argentina Year 2005: This tournament produced a FIDE World Champion GM Topalov who later played a unification match with GM Kramnik.

This is just a brief in World Chess Championship history. To delve into the fibers that have helped put together the cloth that wraps so many in Chess Fever, would be to turn this blog post into an invisible cloak with no end in site, one topic leads to another, so on and so forth.

Thoughts on “The World Chess Championship – A Brief History”

The fact that Anand hadn’t had a shot at the title since 1995, is an indication of how broken the system had become. Let’s hope that the player’s will now continue to have an opportunity to win the title in fair and open competitions.